


Brave As A Lion

by l_cloudy



Series: Born in Different Houses AU [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Origin Story, Alternate Universe, Different Houses, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-06
Updated: 2015-07-14
Packaged: 2018-02-03 16:01:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1750385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/l_cloudy/pseuds/l_cloudy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>When Jon Snow was two years old, his aunt Cersei became Queen of the Seven Kingdoms.</em><br/>Or, a kinkmeme fill in which Jon Snow is Jamie's bastard son. Raised in a lion-filled snake pit, Jon's grows up with an absent father, a grandfather who despises his birth yet can't ignore him, and with his eccentric Uncle Tyrion as his closest companion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the previous kinkmeme round, but never finished because no laptop (seriously I wrote this using an ancient thing and Word 2003) ~~but it's now almost complete so I figured it was about time to post it.~~ ETA, a year later: LOL, not complete. I'm working on it. 
> 
> For the purposes of this fic, I’ve made Jon two years older than canon – he’s now born in 281, making him seven years younger than Tyrion. This AU Jon has blonde hair and grey eyes.

**1.**

When Jon Snow was two years old, his aunt Cersei became Queen of the Seven Kingdoms.

Not that Her Grace would have ever wanted to acknowledge their relationship, of course, even if she’d known of it – which, Jon’s father had made sure of, she did not.

When Jon was four, Queen Cersei gave birth to her firstborn, a boy by the name of Joffrey Baratheon, the future ruler of the land. For some reason, Jon’s father considered it an appropriate time to tell her of Jon’s existence, hoping that her current state of contentment would be enough to soften the blow.

It was not.

When Jon was four moons shy of his sixth name day, his father had more than enough reasons to believe that the Queen might want him dead, and arranged for him to be entrusted to his Uncle Gerion’s care, in Lannisport.

That is how Jon’s life truly began.

**2.**

Before Jon Snow was six, and a bastard son of Ser Jaime of House Lannister of Casterly Rock, he was Jon the motherless boy, living with Master Todd the saddle maker and Mistress Lina in White Harbor, sharing their children’s table and their children’s bed for a purse of Maester Theomore’s silver. Before he was Jon Snow, Jon ate meat once a week on feast day, worked around the house and, once he’d turned five, started to learn his letters with Maester Theomore on the few hours the man had to spare.

Before he was Jon Snow, Jon knew his place in the world. He called all the guards _ser_ and all the knights _m’lord_ , and knew what gold looked like but he’d never seen it. He went up to the castle twice a week passing through the servant’s gate up to the maester’s chambers to learn how to write, but he was not allowed whenever the Lord of the castle had guests, like that time Lord Stark came to visit for an entire month.

Living in Lannisport, Jon decided that his place in the world wasn’t one he particularly enjoyed.

He set to change it instead.

**3.**

When Jon was almost six, Master Todd took him to the harbor to Ser Gareth Clifton, a real knight with a sword he would let Jon touch after he’d promised he wouldn’t try to take off the scabbard. They were to go to the Westerlands, Ser Gareth told him, but their ship would go to King’s Landing first because Jon’s father wanted to see him.

Jon had always been told that his mother was dead, and his father a distant cousin of Maester Theomore who could not look after him. It was the truth, Jon realized soon enough, but not all of it.

On the day they reached King’s Landing Ser Gareth brought Jon to an inn, into a dining room that was bigger than Master Todd’s whole house. There was a big, high table with study chairs; and a man sitting by the fireplace, looking at the flames. He turned the moment they entered the room, and Jon heard him draw a sharp breath.

“Are you my father?” Jon found himself asking, curious; and next to him Ser Gareth chuckled.

The man didn’t answer Jon’s question, glancing toward Ser Gareth instead, with a look that was almost a glare. “Thank you,” he said. “You may go.”

The knight nodded and left, closing the door behind him with an audible _click_ ; and Jon and the man were left alone in the room.

“Are you my father?” Jon asked again, feeling piqued when he still didn’t answer. “ _Well?_ ” he added after a while, louder. Maybe too loud.

But the man laughed at that, a warm sound that seemed to melt all the uneasiness in the room. Jon had never heard anyone laughing like that before, loud and deep, like a content rumble. It was the sound of a man who hadn’t a care in the world and all the reasons to be happy with his lot in life, and Jon had never imagined he could make anyone laugh this way.

“Well yes,” the man – _Jon’s father_ said. “That would be me.”

“You can come closer, you know,” he told Jon, who was still standing next to the door. He sounded almost hesitant, and Jon wondered if he was as nervous as he felt. “I’m Jaime.”

 _Jaime_ looked too young to be anyone’s father, with hair the same color as Jon’s and dressed in a cloak so white it almost glowed in the half-light of the room. Jon moved in closer, to the chair Jaime was pointing at, heavy and comfy and so big Jon was afraid it might swallow him when he sat.

“Well, _I_ am Jon,” he said, and his father laughed again.

“I know,” Jaime answered, smile never leaving his face, and Jon stared at him mesmerized.

“Do you have one, too?” he asked all of a sudden, and Jaime blinked. “A sword, I mean,” Jon told him. “Like Ser Gareth’s.”

“Oh, I do,” he assured Jon. “I have two.”

“Really?”

“Really,” Jaime said. “Listen, Jon – ”

“Are you coming with me to Lannisport?” Jon interrupted. “Ser Gareth said I have to go there.”

That seemed to take him by surprise. “No, I won’t,” he said, slowly. “I cannot.”

“Oh.” He felt disappointed at that, not really knowing why. He’d lived without a father until that day, after all, so what difference would it make?

“Jon,” he heard his father call, as if from far away; and only then he realized how lost he’d been in his thoughts. “Jon,” Jaime repeated. “I’m sorry.”

Jaime Lannister never apologized; but Jon did not know that then, and it would be years before he could fully appreciate the value of his father’s words.

“You’ll be living with my uncle, Gerion,” he continued. “And my brother will come to visit, I have an inkling you’ll like him.”

“Your brother?” Jon found himself asking. His father’s brother, and an uncle. It wasn’t as good as having a father, but close enough.

Jaime nodded. “Tyrion. We can talk about him during dinner, if you want.”

The evening flew away after that; and Jon and Ser Gareth left through the Lion’s Gate the next morning.

He would not see his father again for years.

**4.**

Lannisport was smaller than King’s Landing but bigger than White Harbor, made up of bright colored houses with flat roofs, only a few thatched. Most of them made of clay tiles that shined in the sun, and Jon had never seen anything quite like it.

“The winters never get as hard as they do in the North, or even in King’s Landing,” Ser Gareth told him, laughing at his confused look. “The maesters say it’s because of the winds from the sea.”

Jon could see the sea in the distance, even from beyond the city gates. Lannisport was almost completely flat on the horizon, but for some hills in the center of the city where the larger houses were. The tallest cliffs were outside the city, rocky and steep, and Jon could make out a castle perched among the rocks, with a crimson banner fluttering in the wind.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“That is the Rock,” Ser Gareth said. “Lord Tywin’s seat.”

He led him into the city to one of the houses Jon had admired earlier, made of solid bricks and surrounded by trees. It was small and nested at the very base of the city hills, but it looked impressive to Jon, especially when Ser Gareth told him that it belonged to Gerion Lannister, who was unmarried and did not even live there.

“He lives in the Rock,” the man told him. “But you won’t be staying there, Jon.” He added the last part looking at him with a curious look on his face, as if expecting some sort of reaction.

“Alright,” Jon answered, and apparently that was the right thing to say because the man nodded at him.

“Alright,” he repeated. “Come, we are almost there.”

 _Ser_ Gerion – who was a _knight_ , same as Jon’s father, - looked at Jon for the longest time when they were introduced, an half-smile tugging at his lips. “You are the exact image of your father when he was your age, boy,” he said, and Jon smiled back.

It felt good.

**5.**

Jon celebrated his sixth name day a forthnight after his arrival, in the brick house with Gerion Lannister – Uncle Gerion, as he insisted to be called – watching the sun dip into the ocean and eating lemoncake, which tasted better than anything he’d ever eaten before in his life.

“I’ve never even _seen_ a lemon,” Jon told Gerion, laughing, and he made a strange face.

“You wouldn’t,” his uncle said, slowly. “Wouldn’t you?” He kept looking at Jon, and he shifted a bit, suddenly feeling uncomfortable. “Stuck in, what was it?” the man continued, “Winterfell?”

“White Harbor,” Jon offered, uncertain.

“White Harbor,” Gerion repeated. “Jaime should’ve brought you South sooner. A damn shame he didn’t.” He sounded like he was talking to himself, shaking his head all the while. “Perhaps if he had, Tyrion wouldn’t… oh, well.”

Jon had heard that name before. “Isn’t Tyrion my father’s brother? He said Tyrion would visit, but he hasn’t yet.”

Gerion laughed, but he didn’t look amused. “Tyrion… had a bit of a quarrel with his father lately. He’s been forbidden from leaving the Rock.”

Jon found himself frowning. Jaime had talked plenty about Tyrion in their all-too-brief encounter, about Gerion and his other uncle Tygett, who was dead, and Kevan, who was a warrior, but he’d never said a word about his own father.

“Will my grandfather ever come to visit, too?”

The man laughed at that, deep and long, with pure amusement. “Jon…” Gerion began once he’d regained control. “Did Jaime even told you _anything_?”

Jon had been told plenty but, it turned out, not nearly enough. On that day, he learned that his father’s father was the most powerful man in all the Seven Kingdoms and that his aunt was a Queen, and both had not been thrilled to find out that Jaime had fathered a bastard son.

“They don’t like me,” Jon said, then, resigned. It wasn’t a good thought, but not a bad one either. Some people he’d met had liked him, Gerion and Mistress Lina, and Delho the butcher and Dora, the housekeeper who’d been looking after him since he’d come to live in Lannisport. Some other people, like Master Todd or Maester Theomore, hadn’t liked him, even when they tried to pretend otherwise.

But none of them had been family.

“Jon,” Gerion began, looking very sober. “My brother is a very prideful man. He wanted Jaime to marry, and have heirs, and now…”

“Just give him time, boy,” his uncle added, softly. “Give it some time.”

**6.**

Jon did eventually meet Tyrion, months later; and remained sorely disappointed at first.

“I thought you’d be shorter,” he said, not quite managing to mask the surprise. His uncle Tyrion was a drarf, just like his father had told him, and his hair was as pale as Jon had been told, and Tyrion surely looked like he was the most intelligent person Jon had ever met, _but…_

Tyrion blinked. “Well,” he said. “This is a first, young Jon. People do usually say it the other way around.”

“My father said you’d be shorter than me,” Jon explained, and his uncle had only one good look at his face before he started laughing.

“Jaime said that, didn’t he?” Jon nodded. Jaime had _promised_ ; and Jon had never been taller than anyone before. “The _prick_.”

Tyrion kept looking at him through narrowed eyes, as if Jon was a fish at the market he wanted to buy. “Well, then,” he began, seemingly satisfied. “Congratulations. You are, by far, the most interesting thing around here.”

“Thank you,” Jon said, surprised at his uncle’s words, and meaning it. _Interesting_. He’d never been called that before.

“Just see not to fall in love with your sword, boy,” Tyrion said, and Jon found himself laughing.

“It’s Jon,” he told him. “My name. Jon, not boy.”

Jon didn’t particularly mind being called _boy_ by Gerion, who was old enough to be his father; but Tyrion was a different thing, only a few years older than Jon and barely taller.

“Jon,” Tyrion agreed. “After my mother, I presume?”

“I – ” Jon had to pause to think. “I don’t know.”

“No matter,” his uncle said. “Just say that you were. I’ll tell my Lord Father so; perhaps he might decide he likes you then.”

Tyrion must have read the hope on Jon’s face then, because he laughed again. “Believe me Jon,” he said. “You are better off where he can’t see you.”

 _Easy for you to say_ , Jon thought, but kept it to himself.

It was the first time he did so; it would not be the last.

**7.**

The first year flew by, day after day. Jon lived in the brick house with the peach trees , and Gerion would visit every day, with Tyrion whenever he could. He still had his lessons, same as he had in White Harbor, in the house of a distant cousin of Gerion, a Ser Patreck Lannister, learning letters and numbers with his maester and playing at swords with his children.

They did not like Jon, and he them; but Gerion only laughed when he told him. “Let them call you a bastard all they want, Jon. At the end of the day, you’re still Jaime’s son.”

Jaime himself did not visit; according to Tyrion, he rarely did. “Not when Cersei wants him there,” Tyrion said, and Jon shrugged. He’d heard Tyrion ask Gerion, once, if Cersei would really have him killed, and decided he really didn’t want to meet her after all.

He did meet Lord Tywin, twice, on the two times Gerion brought him along to Casterly Rock. That was the first thing to know about Tywin Lannister, Jon learned. He did not move for anything or anyone; the world came to him.

And, sometimes, he would acknowledge that _the world_ included his favorite son’s bastard spawn.

“You look like your father enough,” were the first words Lord Tywin said to him, with the barest hint of disappointment, the curve of his lips in the way he said _your father_ just bitter enough to make clear that he’d wished Jon had looked a little less Lannister; anything to avoid admitting that, yes, it was his grandson standing in front of him.

“Pity for the eyes,” he added, as if in an afterthought. Lord Tywin’s eyes were a deep green, like Jaime’s; Jon’s were as grey as a northern winter.

“You must have gotten them from your mother,” Lord Tywin continued, keeping his gaze fixed on Jon; but his words were too well spoken, too deliberate to be anything but a message, voice as stern as steel. “Oh well,” Jon’s grandfather said. “At least this one wasn’t a whore.”

It dawned then on Jon that the man in front of him likely knew everything about his mother – her name, her family, how she’d looked like. After all, wasn’t Lord Lannister the most powerful man in Westeros? Everyone said so. _I could have more family, somewhere_ , Jon thought, holding that green gaze.

But, in the end, it didn’t matter. He could still hear Gerion’s words in his mind; _at the end of the day, you are Jaime’s son_. That was all he needed.

Jon left without asking, feeling Tywin’s eyes on him the whole time, watching him, _weighing_.

He wondered if it’d been a test.

He wondered if he’d passed.

**8.**

When Jon was well into his seventh year, many things happened. One of them was the birth of Gerion’s daughter.

“She was born a fortnight ago,” his uncle told him, the night the raven arrived. “Her name’s Joy.”

 _Joy_. Jon repeated the name to himself, tasting it in his mouth. He liked the sound of it. “I like this name,” he said; and Gerion laughed.

“So do I,” he answered. “Her mother chose it.”

Little Joy’s mother was a merchant’s daughter from King’s Landing, Tyrion told Jon, a young woman who was rich enough and quite beautiful, noble on her mother’s side; a woman Gerion had no intention to marry.

“I have no intention to marry, _ever_ ,” Gerion corrected Tyrion; and Jon frowned.

“But won’t the child…” feel like he did. Halfway there. A misfit.

“Grown up a bastard?” Gerion asked, his voice surprisingly delicate. “Of course. But she’ll want for nothing, Jon.”

“We look after our own.”

**9.**

Jon wrote to his father often; he barely wrote back. He did not mind.

“Jaime’s never had a way with words,” Tyrion had told him early on. “But he’ll read, you can be sure of it.”

People were always telling him about his father, Tyrion and Gerion and Ser Patreck’s master-at-arms; and even the Lady Genna Frey, whom Jon had met only a few times. He knew so much of the boy his father had been once, could perhaps try to imagine the man he was now. But Jaime knew nothing of Jon, nothing but a dark afternoon in King’s Landing when he’d been five, and Jon set to rectify that.

And so he wrote, and wrote; and his replies, when he got any, were short and to the point, but amusing in a sort of dry manner that Jon came to associate with his father. Still, it was all rather one-sided, a way like the others to order his thoughts; but all of this changed when Jaime went to war.

**10.**

The war came to them first, crawling into the harbor with the dead of night, and Jon woke up to the smell of smoke and the shouts of dying men.

It was brutal, and it was fast; and then it was only loneliness and endless wait, afternoons of summer storms with all the warriors gone at sea and no news for weeks on end. _If the Ironborn win_ , people whispered, _they’ll come back and burn us out of our homes_.

For Jon, war was stale food and windows closed shut until the day Jon left Gerion’s house for Casterly Rock, because his uncle’s household had been disbanded after he left, and because it turned out that Lannisters really looked out for each others, even for bastard children. Jon’s room in the Rock was outside the family quarters and almost as small as the one he’d had to share with Mistress Lina’s children back in White Harbor, but it was _his_ , a place to be in the grandest castle in Westeros; and it almost made up for how sickening the wait was.

It all came to an end, eventually; and the ravens flew back and forth again with tales of victory and grief, names of dead and missing and murdered foes. Of the Greyjoy Rebellion, Jon would remember the way he used to scan the sky every morning, looking for signs of a dreaded summer storm, knowing that Gerion and the others were fighting at sea. He would remember the stench of wet ashes that permeated Lannisport for months after the war started; and the shriek of Tessa, Lord Tywin’s governess, the way she cried and wailed when she received word that all of her brothers had died on Pyke.

But most of all he would remember the letter he got one morning, the same day the news of Pyke’s surrender reached the Rock. Thick parchment, still wet from the storms still raging over the Sunset Sea, longer than any other message he had ever received before. He recognized the hand instantly, as rarely as he’d seen it, the inelegant scrawls of a man more used to handle a sword than a quill.

 _Jon_ , his father had written, no greetings and no ceremonies, _my squire died today_. The boy, some Tyrell nephew, had been barely eleven years old to Jon’s eight, but Jon didn’t know that. He also did could not imagine how much Jaime had berated himself for sending such a letter to a child, after, all those mad ramblings written in the dark of a ship’s hold listening to men dying. Jaime had been hurt, he wrote Jon, briefly; but what he did not say was that he’d took an axe to a leg in the euphoria of victory and almost bleed out, let to recover hidden on Robert’s flagship because they could not trust one of Greyjoy’s men to kill the Kingslayer if they’d known where he slept.

He told Jon about his life at court instead, putting words to paper like he hadn’t done since he’d been a boy, pouring his soul to the only person who seemed to want to know everything about him, this boy he’d met only twice, and both time sent away. Tyrion knew everything about him already and Cersei was a part of himself – but none of them where there, on the island Jaime had been convinced he would die on; and he did not want to die a stranger.

In those two pages, Jon Snow learnt more about Jaime Lannister than he had in a lifetime.

When the Lannister fleet came back, a fortnight later, Jon’s father came with them.

**11.**

They would held a tourney, Tyrion told Jon, the greatest the realm had ever seen since King Robert’s wedding to Cersei. All the court would come, his uncle said, all the Great Lords of the Seven Kingdoms but for Lord Stark – who had already returned to Winterfell, a Greyjoy boy as his hostage. Jon found himself remembering White Harbor then, the cold winds and the endless grey skies and realized, with some surprise, that he missed the North.

“My sweet sister will visit, as well,” Tyrion added, making Jon frown. It was one thing to know that his father’s sister was the _queen_ , another entirely to have the proof of it in front of his eyes.

“I can already tell you will be _delighted_ to meet her, Jon,” Tyrion continued, making him wince.

“I really don’t think so,” he answered; and his uncle laughed.

“Don’t worry lad,” he said. “You won’t have to suffer her charming presence for long.”

And indeed he did not.

Jon met his father first, when he returned with Lord Tywin’s army, still recovering from his wound, and did not quite know what to say at first. It had been close to three years, and the details of Jaime’s face had gone fuzzy in his mind. He remembered his father’s bright green eyes well, though, so different from Lord Tywin’s cold ones, and the air of youth about him, the way he looked almost like the Warrior himself – but his eyes looked haunted now and the freshness was gone, and Jon wouldn’t have recognized him if not for his white cloak and the way he blinked at him when they met, voice broken.

“Jon?” he called, softly, cautiously; and suddenly there was a distance between them, and the crushing weight of lost years and missed opportunities; and Jon was five years old again, confused and lonely and scared.

“Father,” Jon replied, the word clumsy on his tongue, like the squeaking of a door that’s almost never opened. It felt strange and yet oddly welcome, and Jon found himself desperately wishing for a distraction. “How is the leg?” he asked then, as if they were just having a casual chat, as if they weren’t strangers.

When some page boy came looking for Jaime for some reason or the other, Jon was grateful for the interruption. They’d been talking barely a few minutes, and still it’d felt like hours.

The next time Jon saw his father, he was with the Queen.

Queen Cersei – Jaime and Tyrion’s sister, Jon’s own aunt, but he knew he would never think of her as anything but _the Queen_ , even more so than Lord Tywin was _Lord Lannister_ and not his grandfather – was every bit as stunning as Jon had always heard, and as haughty as Tyrion had always said. She had a smile on her face the whole time, every bit as beautiful and alluring as she was, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. Cersei followed Jaime’s gaze when he met Jon’s eyes across one of the hallways, on his way to Tyrion’s quarters, and she was the one who came to greet him, Jon’s father walking closely behind.

“And what do we have here?” she asked Jaime, as if she didn’t know the answer. Jon thought about answering, but simply bowed instead, perhaps a little too stiffly, out of practice. There in the Rock, bastard or not , a son of Jaime Lannister bowed to no one – no one but the grandfather who avoided him with with a passion and, now, the woman who seemed to hate him already.

“Your Grace,” Jon greeted, at the same time as Jaime introduced him.

“My son, Jon,” his father told the queen, the unsaid word hanging in the air between them.

“How charming,” Cersei observed, still talking to Jaime, as if Jon was not there at all. “He has _northern_ eyes,” she said, and somehow it almost sounded like an insult.

“And the rest is all mine, sister,” Jaime told her, sounding as if they’d had the conversation already. “You can see that for yourself, surely. Jon is every bit my son.”

It was as if they’d completely forgotten he was there, and yet Jon couldn’t have been more glad, almost sweating under the weight of that intense green gaze.

“A _bastard_ son,” the queen said; the word on her lips sounding harsher than ever.

Jaime, for his part, only laughed.

It was a mirthless laugh, but deep and full, as if the queen had just made a very good joke. “Cersei, sweet sister,” he said, shaking his head. “Let’s not fool ourselves, shall we?”

It would be years before Jon realized what he’d meant.


	2. Chapter 2

  **12**.

In the years to follow, Jon would always think of that tourney as some sort of turning point. Jaime standing up to his sister, Tyrion told him later, was an exceptionally rare occurrence to begin with, and Jaime seeking out his son later to apologize for Cersei’s words even more so.

“She can be… wary of people she does not know,” his father told him later that night, knowing fully just how weak of an excuse that was to give to a child. How could a _queen_ be wary of anyone, Jon thought to himself –

But it was late at night, and Jaime had just come to him, and this time it wasn’t a chance encounter or out of some misguided sense obligation. He’d come because he’d wanted to, the simplest reason of them all; and, for the first time in his life, Jon finally had a father – not just a nameless man on the other side of Westeros, or the knight he’d met for one night, or Lord Tywin’s golden son; but a _real_ father, someone he could see and meet and touch, who came into his room after he’d been dismissed for the night just to talk, because _that_ was what family did –

It was new and scary and terribly confusing, and it was _wonderful_.

That month was one of the best of Jon’s life. He went on as he always had, leaving the cold magnificence of the Rock for the welcome familiarity of Gerion’s house; but now Jaime would come visit almost every day, for an entire hour, and sometimes even longer. It was almost _too much_ at times, going from nothing to _this_ ; and Jon started noticing changes in Gerion’s face whenever he greeted Jaime, a slight shift in his attitude, the way he would frown and glance at Jon with an illegible look in his eyes.

“Jon,” his uncle told him one night, after Jaime had left. He looked weary and tired and older than his years, and Jon wondered what exactly had happened during the war to change him so. “You realize,” he began, slowly. “That Jaime will be returning to King’s Landing soon, do you?”

“Of course I do.” Jon spat out. And he did; simply did not want to think about it.

But that day came far too soon.

 **13**.

The tourney lasted three whole days, three days of silk pavilions and grandeur and wine flowing as the crowd shouted. Jon sat with Tyrion and Gerion, wide-eyed, grasping the wooden seat with both hands as one knight after another fell on the ground in front of them.

“Are you enjoying yourself, lad?” Gerion asked, amused. “Don’t worry too much – if there is one thing Jaime is good at, is swinging a lance.”

That much was true; Jaime’s spear seemed to always find its target. Tyrion’s grin became wider as more and more gold changed hands, and even the Queen, sitting sternly in the royal box at her husband’s side, allowed herself to smile.

“Have you ever thought about becoming a knight, Jon?” Gerion’s voice distracted him from his thoughts, and he turned towards his uncle, confused. He’d always toyed with the idea, it had always been assumed that he _would_ , someday, but to bring it up _now_ …

Jon frowned, and Gerion must have read the confusion on his face, because he continued. “Just a thought, lad. It’s never too soon to think about the future.”

Jon found himself thinking about Gerion’s words for the entire day – just what did he know, what had he _meant_? – and all but missed the last joust of the day, when some unknown northern lord unhorsed Jaime to the sound of the crowd’s shocked murmurs and King Robert’s boisterous laughter. Jaime was back on his feet immediately, shaking his head in regret, but Jon saw the queen’s icy glare at her husband’s reaction, and Lord Tywin’s barely concealed frown.

“No love lost, there,” Tyrion said, following his gaze. “It will be one interesting goodbye feast for my father tonight.”

The next day, when the royal party left Lannisport for King’s Landing, so did Gerion.

**14.**

The war had changed Gerion, that was what Tyrion told Jon, and made him restless. Jon could easily see that for himself; his uncle had taken to sail whenever he could, firstly under the excuse of carrying off his brother’s affairs, then for no apparent reason – no reason, Tyrion had added, bitterly, besides the fact that he could.

He could, when Tyrion himself could not; and if Jon was too young to understand the full meaning of those words, Tyrion certainly was not.

**15.**

Tyrion Lannister celebrated his sixteenth name day minding his new duties – nominally, being put in charge of all the drains of the Rock. Before that came yet another discussion with his father, an angry, spiteful argument that even Jon managed to hear fairly well, as did anyone else in Casterly Rock. Humility had never been a virtue of the Lannisters’, Lord Tywin’s most of all, and Jon had never seen the man quite so livid as he had that day – after Tyrion had made sure of causing the biggest scene he could, in a fight that had been nowhere close to private.

Barely a moon’s turn after, Lord Tywin sent for him.

“You’re looking more like my son than you used to,” he said, and Jon heard the unspoken _good_ , and took notice of the way Tywin had said _my son_ and not _your father_ , and decided that the words were the closest thing to a compliment he could get from his grandfather. “How old are you, now?”

Jon had turned nine years old a two days earlier, and Lord Tywin had to know – he was too precise of a man, and his summon nothing if not deliberate. Still, he answered anyway.

“I sent Jaime to squire for Lord Crakehall when he was eleven,” he said, as if Jon didn’t know. “But they do say bastard children grow up faster, don’t you?”

Jon raised his head and found himself staring into Lord Tywin’s green eyes, so unlike Jon’s own. And so the Lord of wanted to put his House in order, as Gerion had told him once he would – after the war, when he’d come home changed and started talking about the _future_. _He’d want to see what the bastard boy is made of_ , his uncle had warned, in that oddly melancholy tone he would get sometimes, and just what was Jon made of? Just a bastard boy with no one to lean on, but still _Jaime Lannister’s son_ , and –

And Tyrion, who was Jon’s _friend_ , but still.

Tyrion, who despised his father and made no secret of it, and Jaime was sworn to the Kingsguard, and Lady Cersei was the queen.

He looked at Lord Tywin again, _cautious_ , wondering.

“We do.” Jon said; and it was not quite five months later that he left Casterly Rock for Hornvale.

**16.**

Lord Andros Brax was a tall, imposing man, with a face gone red from too much drinking and black eyes who burned fiercely on his lined face. When he talked he roared, reminding Jon somewhat of Robert Baratheon, but his rounded figure could not be any more different from the king’s muscled frame; nor was his lady wife anything like Queen Cersei, to Jon’s great relief.

The lord of Hornvale also had a healthy fear of his liege lord, or so Jon was cheerfully informed by Malia the kitchen girl a day or two into his stay. He’d been good boyhood friend with the late lord Reyne, the rumors went, and now would never dare sneeze in Lord Tywin’s hearing, least he’d take offense to that. Jon being Jaime’s son apparently prevailed over his bastard birth, and Jon’s new room in Lord Brax’s castle was bigger and better furnished than his old one in Casterly Rock had been. Jon had to laugh the moment he noticed _that_ particular, and immediately set to write about it to Gerion… until he remember that his uncle had been at sea for weeks now, sailing from Pentos to Lys to Sunspear, and only the gods knew where he would go after that.

Smile fading from his face, Jon decided to write Jaime instead. His father’s messages had become longer since the war, if as infrequent, and he knew Jaime of all people would appreciate. At the end, once the ink had dried and the missive sealed, Jon found himself thinking about Tyrion.

They hadn’t parted on good terms. Not bad terms either; but they hadn’t been as close as they were used to, acquaintances rather than accomplices. Tyrion had known all along what Jon might become, the spare Lord Tywin needed so much, the invisible threat his father would use to get him to behave _as a Lannister should_ , and now Jon knew it, too.

Still, Jon decided, they _were_ friends. And he wasn’t about to let Tywin Lannister of Casterly Rock, Warden of the West and Shield of Lannisport, get in the way of that.

**17.**

Jon was eleven when he visited King’s Landing for the second time, when Lord Andros and his heir had to the city to solve some thing or another with the king’s Master of Coin.

He met up with Jaime in the same inn as the first time, and he found himself assaulted by memories – of Ser Gareth and the thrill of discovering he had a family, of his old memories of White Harbor and those early days in Lannisport, before everything.

It felt like another life.

Jaime himself looked better than he had the last time, and barely any older. He wore golden armor and an easy smile, and his white cloak stood up like a beacon among the dark of the room. He told Jon of the time Tyrion had come to visit in King’s Landing, which Jon already knew, and how he’d managed to outdrink King Robert, which Tyrion had either forgotten to mention, or hadn’t considered a suitable enough topic for a child. Jaime had none of these problems, however, telling Jon of how His Grace preferred drinking companions to sparring companions more and more nowadays, all in a lightly mocking voice that wasn’t what anyone would have expected of a member of the Kingsguard.

“Listen, Jon…” Jaime began, somewhat tentatively, some two hours later. “How would you like to see more of the city? You never have, haven’t you?” His voice got surer towards the end, and Jon couldn’t do anything but nod in agreement, excited and nervous at the same time, because a part of him couldn’t help but wonder if by _more of the city_ his father had meant _the Red Keep_ , and he had no idea of how to feel about that.

But, as it turned out, he’d been worrying for nothing. Jaime stood up and took something off his saddle satchel – a woolen coat to trade in for his white one, heavy and brown and well worn, the sort of thing a mercenary would wear, and that was when Jon realized that he’d _planned_ this. Jaime noticed his surprise and smiled, the kind of triumphant smile Jon had seen him give the crowd at the Lannisport tourney whenever he won a bout, and Jon felt a surge of happiness because _this_ was how he’d used to imagine having a father would feel like.

They ended up going _outside_ the city wall, passing through the Lion’s Gate as Jon had done once before, years ago. Jaime had him mount on his horse even though Jon had insisted that he _could_ ride on his own. He could ride better than anyone his age, or so Ser Anton – Lord Brax’s master-at-arms – had told him once; but Jaime had only laughed and then it wasn’t long before they reached on of the patches of trees that surrounded the edge of the Kingswood. Jaime stopped then, in the middle of a field that looked just like any other field Jon had seen – if not for the small pool by the trees, almost dried out in the summer heat.

“What is it here?” Jon asked, turning around to look – and he almost missed his father’s face as he said it, the small crease forming on his brow, the way he brought one hand to slowly touch his face, and almost regretted asking. Almost, but not quite.

“Just a field,” Jaime said, following Jon’s gaze. “A pretty field.”

It _was_ pretty, the green of the grass blending in with the purple of wild lavender, the trees casting a pleasant shadow. One of them was an oak, the biggest Jon could ever remember seeing, its massive trunk dark and gnarled.

“Princess Elia’s favorite spot,” Jaime continued after a while, making to sit behind the tree. Jon followed him. “She used to say it helped her think.”

“And does it?”

“I don’t know,” his father shrugged, suddenly reminding Jon of Tyrion. “I just enjoy the shade, myself.”

They talked some more after that, of Gerion’s latest sea voyage and of the Myrish priest with the flaming sword, until Jaime handed Jon a wooden practice sword and they stopped talking altogether; and night came too soon.

 **18**.

Tyrion came to visit Jon in Hornvale just before his eighteenth name-day, on the way to the Riverlands where he’d been invited by his aunt Genna, who was currently residing at the Twins with her husband’s family. “And that is a trip I’d never wanted to make,” Tyrion joked with Jon – but whenever Lady Genna called, one could do nothing but obey.

To Jon’s surprise, Gerion had come, too. “I wanted to know if they were treating you alright, lad,” his uncle said, with the same twinkle in his eyes of the Gerion Jon remembered from childhood, even if it was gone far too soon. They remained three whole days, three days of Tyrion lightening Lord Brax’s men of their gold in games of dice and checkers and using it to ease Lord Brax’s serving girl into his bed, three days of Gerion flickering through all of books Maester Lorazo’s books, barely containing his disappointment when it turned out that he’d read them all already.

Gerion was looking for new information for his imminent voyage, or so he told Jon. _To Valyria_ , were his words, _or what is left of it_ ; and Jon found it suitably impressive before forgetting about it altogether and asking his uncle about little Joy instead, his little cousin who was growing up to be every bit as beautiful as her mother if not more, if Gerion was to be believed.

He set sail to Valyria on month later; and that was the last Jon ever heard of Gerion Lannister.

**19.**

“Who was my mother?” Jon asked his father one day, during one of Jaime’s all-to-briefs visit; and he’d been paying close enough attention to see him wince. Jaime must have been expecting it, of course – that much was clear from the resigned look he threw Jon – but he didn’t look particularly pleased to be having that conversation either.

Jaime’s answer surprised him.

“Does it matter?” his father asked, and Jon realized that no, it didn’t. Not particularly. He’d been raised by Lannister relatives in a Lannister city and sent off to squire for one of Lord Lannister’s most powerful bannermen, all on account of being Jaime Lannister’s son. His mother, whoever she’d been, would never make as big of an impact in his life; but still.

But still, he’d wondered; and for so long.

“It doesn’t,” Jon began quietly, and saw sheer _relief_ in Jaime’s eyes; and that was when he understood. He hadn’t meant to remind Jon of his place with that question – not Jaime Lannister, who cared nothing for subtlety and delicacy. It had been _personal_ instead, asking Jon if he’d preferred having a mother instead, wanting to know, was he a good father, was he _enough_ ; Jaime Lannister, who was more of an abstract construct than a real person in the mind of all those who knew him, Jaime Lannister who had no idea of how to be a father any more than Jon knew how to be a son, and yet he _wanted_.

In that moment Jon felt a surge of affection, like sometimes he had towards Gerion when he’d been younger, or towards Tyrion whenever he made him feel like he belonged. _Is this what loving someone feels like?_ he thought to himself; but he had no way to know, because Lannister had stone and gold in their hearts and they did not love.

“It doesn’t matter,” Jon repeated louder, more surely. “Not really… but I’d like to know anyway.” _If you can tell me_ , was left unsaid; and it was a while before Jaime spoke up.

“We met in White Harbor,” Jaime began, his voice low; or perhaps it only sounded that way to Jon, against the loud noise of his heat beating in his chest. “When I was still a squire, only a few years younger than you are now.”

He did not tell Jon what every child wants to know about his mother – that she was beautiful, and graceful, and kind. She was brash, Jaime said instead, and she laughed so freely, everyone couldn’t help but take notice of her. “I never knew it until after you were born,” his father continued, eyes trailed on a point just above Jon’s shoulder, “she refused to name the father, or so I was told, and her family did not want it known so that she could still be married.”

Jon felt an uneasy twinge of… something at the mention of _family_ – his _mother_ ’s family, another world entirely – and Jaime continued his story, telling of how he’d send someone for him when he’d known, and someone else after that, two or three different people until he’d ended up in Maester Theomore’s care, to make sure no one could ever know for sure whose son Jon was. “I did not want it known,” Jaime explained. “Not with the… war.”

“Is my mother really dead?” Jon asked then, because if Jaime had been so secretive, then perhaps…

But his father only nodded, and that was it. It didn’t matter at all, not _really_ ; and they didn’t spoke of it for many years to come.

**20.**

Jon was three-and-ten when he fought in his first tourney, some modest affair organized by Lord Redwyne to celebrate the wedding of a favorite nephew to a Swift girl. He wasn’t tall enough to joust, Ser Anton had warned him, with his cautionary tales of boys thrown on a tournament ground too young – _you have heard of what happened to Willas Tyrell, have you?_ – and Jon’d had to agree, because he had no desire to ruin a leg, and no lordship to fall back on.

He’d contented himself with trying his luck in the melee instead, telling himself that he had no reason to be nervous about it. The company was nothing special, a handful of Houses from the Reach and the West, and still there were enough distinguished knights that a loss would be considered a given rather than an humiliation, and he should only focus on how to make the story sound as interesting as possible to tell Malia when he went back to Hornvale – Malia who’d grown into her long legs and big bright eyes, and had been moved from the kitchen to Her Ladiship’s service, with all the free time that it entailed.

Yes, Jon decided to himself, it was far better to think of a pretty girl than a tourney melee, and try to ignore the fact that his father had once _won_ a melee when he’d been his age – because there was only one Jaime Lannister, and no one expected Jon to be as good as his father was; and thank the gods for that.

He waited in line with all the other squires and young knights for Lord Redwyne’s maester-at-arm to take their names, so that they could be written down. The man frowned briefly in recognition when he saw Jon, and he remembered that they’d been introduced on the first day.

“You’re Lord Brax’s squire,” he said, not quite a question. “The Lannister bastard?”

He’d meant it plainly, a fact and not an insult, but to Jon the word still burnt. “Aye, ser” he nodded, and so did the knight.

“Good,” the man said, pleased to have remembered one name – but it wasn’t _good_ , not at all. “Jon, was it? Jon Hill.”

And he made to write, but Jon found himself speaking up before he could. “It’s not Hill,” he said, surprising even himself. He’d never been called _that_ before, only Jon to Gerion and Tyrion and Jaime and Ser Anton, and _boy_ to everyone else; and he couldn’t help but find the name… unpleasant, somehow. There were dozens of boys named Hill in the Westernlands, sons of petty lords and edge knights, blonde children with no history or future – and how many of those were named _Jon_? A bastard he might be, but a bastard raised in Casterly Rock, with a future of his own making; and it wouldn’t do to be taken for someone else.

He thought of the North he barely remembered but still missed, of the mother he would never know and the life he’d never have. “It’s Snow,” he told the knight. There might be others named Jon Snow, somewhere; but certainly none of them was _here_.

“It’s Jon Snow.”


	3. Chapter 3

**21.**

Jon’s fourteenth year was the year Tyrion left Lannisport and the Rock for the court in King’s Landing.

Lord Tywin hadn’t been pleased, or so Jon had been told, and he’d privately decided that Queen Cersei surely wasn’t either – but Robert Baratheon seemed to have a particular fondness for whoever could drink him under the table, as Jaime had told Jon once, and Tyrion certainly qualified. That had made Jon laugh, until he’d realized his father had been actually serious – _you have heard of Thros of Myr, haven’t you? A personal friend of His Grace_ – and it had prompted him to ask Jaime if he’d ever managed to outdrink the king, himself.

Jon had meant it as a joke, but Jaime’s answering smile hadn’t quite been quick enough to mask the grimace he wore under. “Why, the king doesn’t drink with me,” he’d said. “Who knows, it might be poisoned.”

And that had been the first time they’d come close to talk about Aerys, but it wouldn’t be the last.

**22.**

The next time Jon returned to Lannisport it was his cousin Joy’s seventh name day, and he almost didn’t recognize her at first. She had grown up, taller than Jon had been at her age, and looked almost like a porcelain doll in her little blue dress, a small window in her smile where one of her baby teeth had been. Joy had her father’s green Lannister eyes and the chestnut hair of the merchant’s daughter Jon had never met, and so did the doll Tyrion’d had her sent from King’s Landing. _From the same artisan who makes the princess’s dolls_ , Joy had told him proudly with a wide smile, reading slowly from the note Tyrion had sent over with the gift.

Tyrion, who hadn’t come.

 _A disagreement of opinions with Lord Lannister_ , the gossip went, and Jon did not doubt that it was true. The servants spoke in whispers, because indiscretions would not be tolerated in the Rock – everyone still remembered what had happened to the chambermaid who’d dared to go to bed with the king, and to her babes – but still Jon heard the words more often than not, _Lord Tyrion doesn’t much like his father_.

He had to hide a smile at that. _Who does it?_ he thought to himself – thought; but never said. Tyrion himself might lack in diplomacy, but he had a name to make up for it; and all that was left for Jon was to smile politely and nod at Ser Kevan and kiss his lady wife’s hand, and wait.

**23.**

It was only a few moon’s turns after Jon’s fifteenth name day that he was made a knight, one cold, steel-grey dawn, with his own heartbeat pounding madly in his ears and back stiff from the long night spent in vigil.

He swore his pretty, empty oaths to the Gods he’d been taught to merely tolerate, because Tyrion Lannister believed in the might of men above anything, Lord Tywin in that of his House, and Jaime couldn’t have given a damn either ways. And yet Jon found himself praying all the same, lost in that strange place between wake and dream, feeling the cold of the stone floor against his knees and the perfumes of the candles all around him. For a good future, whatever it might bring.

Jaime had been the same age when he’d taken his own oaths, Jon knew, and he took pride in that. Sure, his father had started his own training later than Jon had, but that didn’t matter that much – all that mattered was that he was only five-and-ten, and already a knight; and even Lord Tywin had to notice that. His grandfather sent word to Lord Brax – not Jon himself, never to Jon – that he had a chance to prove himself if he so wished, in the City Watch of King’s Landing.

Jon had dreamed of going home, after, to have a place at Casterly Rock as a man and not an outcast; or even to go North and visit the city he barely remembered. But that could wait, Jon decided; there were worse place to be than King’s Landing.

And Jaime would be there, he knew it, though Jon told himself that it didn’t matter at all.

**24.**

The court did not appeal to Jon in the way he’d expected it would. The king was a brash, colorful presence, but not nearly as central in his subjects’ lives as Lord Tywin was in Casterly Rock. Robert Baratheon, Jon learned soon enough, had a love for the simpler pleasures of life, a mistrust for his wife’s family, and no much interest in anything else.

It was Lord Arryn who ruled the kingdom, and the queen who ruled the court; and Jon did his best to stay away from the both of them. The city was chaotic and loud and far too hot in the summer air, but Jon preferred it to the otherworldly quiet of the Red Keep, where he could see the queen’s hand behind every corner, every precisely placed tapestry on the wall or flower in the garden. Everything and everyone had their assigned place at Cersei’s court, all in accord to the Queen’s will, and Jon – Jon didn’t.

His lodgings in the Keep were cold and uncomfortable; even Robert’s squire Lancel had a better room than he does. Then again, Lancel was Ser Kevan’s son and a trueborn Lannister; and Jon’s parentage is not widely known at court – not that it would make much of a difference, Jon suspected. King’s Landing still remembered the Sack, and he’d seen more than one man spit on the ground at the mention of his father’s name. King Robert might not have been the first man to call Jaime _The_ _Kingslayer_ , but surely he’d been the one who’d made a habit of repeating the name as often as possible, out loud and to his face.

And Jaime – he was the oddest thing about King’s Landing. He was restless and resigned at the same time, seemingly content to spend his days guarding the Queen and nothing else – and still, he always looked as uneasy as a beast in a cage. He found time to spend with Jon, occasionally; but more often than not he had other things to attend to, and Jon wondered if that was how Tyrion felt like, when talking to his own father. An afterthought. Being the focus of Jaime’s sole attention every few months had started to feel better than their stiff everyday conversation now were; and Jon almost wished he could go back to the way things had been before.

Whatever he’d been expecting from King’s Landing, it hadn’t been this.

**25.**

Jon went months in the Red Keep without as much as a glimpse of Prince Joffrey; in fact, the boy never entered his thoughts. Of all the people Jon associated with, the men of the City Watch would gossip about the King every once in a while, of his lovers and his excesses and, on one memorable occasion, of what the Queen must look like naked. Once, deep in his cups, Tyrion had called Joffrey _a cruel little monster, and getting worse every year;_ and as for Jaime, he made a point of never mentioning anything related to his sister in front of Jon.

No, he rarely even thought of Joffrey Baratheon; and surely didn’t expect the Hand of the King to come to him one day, asking Jon about the Crown Prince.

“It was strange,” Jon told Tyrion later that night, frowning. It had been more than strange, for someone like Lord Arryn to come to him asking all sorts of questions. And vague questions at that – if Jon had even meet the prince, what he’d heard about him, if there were any rumors about King Robert that he knew of. Jon had been as truthful as he could – about anything but that last question.

After all, it had taken too long for Jon, knight and of Lannister blood, to gain the confidence of most of the men of the City Watch to the point of being included in their conversations; and he surely wasn’t about to betray that frail trust by letting the Lord Hand in on some tavern chat. It wasn’t anything new in any case; half King’s Landing knew about Robert’s favorite pastimes.

“Maybe Robert finally drove him mad,” Tyrion said. The two of them didn’t spend as much time together as they’d used to growing up in the Rock, not with Jon’s duties keeping him away most nights, but it was still comfortable – this, whatever their relationship was. They were friends, Jon supposed, for all that Tyrion had been the first to tell Jon that family and friends were rarely the same thing. Friends, at least as long as Lord Tywin or Casterly Rock or the undefined future wouldn’t come between them; and, for now, it was more than enough.

**26.**

It was almost dawn by the time Tyrion brought up Jon Arryn again.

“I just remembered,” he told Jon, “he came to me, too.”

“He asked if I knew what your mother had looked like.”

It was the first time Tyrion brought up Jon’s mother around him; in fact, it was the first time he’d heard _anyone_ do so, barring Lord Tywin’s occasional acerbic remarks. Jon didn’t quite know what to make of that. “And what did you tell him?” he asked.

“Why, the truth,” he said. “I was rather bored.” Jon’s mother, he knew, had shared his grey eyes, and had the dark hair and pale skin of the North; but he had no idea what about that might interest the Hand of the King. He told Tyrion as much, and he gave Jon a small, wicked smirk.

“I suppose we shall see.”

**27.**

The next time Jon saw Lord Arryn was at the tourney for the prince’s twelfth name day, from afar. The Hand looked tired and nervous, sitting next to sour-faced Lord Stannis, all but ignoring Lady Lysa’s frown. Jon had more important things to worry about, he told himself – such as Loras Tyrell’s lance – and he didn’t pay much attention to Lord Arryn after that.

Loras Tyrell did win in the end, sending Jon rolling into the dust in one of the last tilts of the evening, and later went on to unhorse Ser Barristan after that, and even Jaime in the final round. Tyrion lost a heavy ruby ring and a sizeable amount of gold, and the king laughed loud enough for half the court to hear. Next to him, Cersei looked livid – more at the king’s reaction, Jon suspected, that at Jaime’s loss.

“Look at Renly, strutting like a peacock,” Tyrion told him later that night. “Now the least you could is win the melee. Avenge the family’s honor, and all that.”

Jon had to laugh at that. He’d won tournament melees before, a few times – not many of the experienced knights liked to enter, and he’d always been better with a sword than with a lance. “You know,” he told Tyrion. “I think I might.”

The purse of the victor was two thousand golden dragons; more than enough, Jon decided, to justify a few hours of fighting, and the risk of getting burned by Thoros of Myr’s flaming sword, or Daron Langward‘s two-handed sword.

The crowd wasn’t as big as it had been on the first day, but the rush – that Jon liked better. He wondered if that was how a real battle would feel like, dust and shouts, the clash of metal against metal, sweat dropping into his eyes. They went on for what felt like forever, for all that it was probably only a couple of hours, blows and misses and the burning sting on his shoulder, where he’d gotten wounded early on. It wasn’t clean either – there were blows that came from more than just weapons, kicks and shoves and elbows against the soft flesh; Jon threw a few of them himself. But it was worth it in the end, so worth it – because at the end he did win, just like he’d told Tyrion he would, and that night Jon Snow went to be with a bandaged shoulder and two thousand gold coins and a surge of pride in his chest, and when he wore up he had a new idea.

**28.**

“I think,” he told Tyrion first thing the following morning, “I think I’d like to North, for a while.”

**29.**

Tywin might have objected, but Tywin was not there. Allan Deem, Jon’s captain at the Rose Gate, did object, saying he little lordling might not find his cushy place in the Watch when he decided to come back; and Jon only laughed. He had no particular wish to serve in the City Watch again, no love for Slynt and his back-alley dealings, or Deem and his twitchy eyes.

He was on a ship headed North not even a fortnight later. Tyrion had seemed enthusiastic when Jon had told him he was leaving, Jaime strangely relieved; and Jon for his part, felt ready for whatever might come. It was only after the ship had docked in White Harbor than he heard about the Lord Hand’s sudden death; and by then, Jon only spared a thought for Lord Arryn’s strange questions, and Trion’s idea that he’d been planning something.

It had nothing to do with him anyway.

**30.**

White Harbor was at the same time completely different from what Jon remembered, and somehow still the same. The air was colder than it had been in his memories, the city itself smaller after one year spent living in King’s Landing; but the smell was that of his childhood, fish and spiced honey and firewood, and Jon realized he’d missed this, even when he hadn’t known he did.

The first thing he did was to go looking for Maester Theomore, the cousin who’d provide him with a roof on his head when Jon had been a child. It wasn’t as hard as Jon had expected – more doors opened for Jon Snow the knight than they had for Jon Snow the motherless boy, even those of Lord Manderly’s castle. The maester’s gold hair had gone grey, but he recognized Jon just fine, and the first thing he told Jon was that he couldn’t help him.

“if you’ve come looking for your mother, boy,” he said. “I’m afraid I never even knew.”

But the thing was, Jon _hadn’t_.

“She’s dead,” Jon said, tasting Jaime’s words in his mouth. “A long time ago.”

Whoever Jon’s mother had been, she’d been gone for as long as he’d been alive, and the name of a dead woman hadn’t been what he’d come looking for. But the place of her birth – of _his_ birth – was calling to him, vast and eternal.

In the end, Jon left the castle and the city without even a name, only the meager information that his mother had come from even further north than White Harbor. It was enough for him; and, in the months after, Jon made his way from the Grey Cliffs to Torrhen’s Square to the Rills, wandering for months and months without destination. He was in Barrowton when he found a message from Tyrion waiting, telling him he should go see the Wall; and that was the first Jon heard about the new Hand of the King, and how the entire court had come to Winterfell.

It would not be the last; Jon Snow was in Cerwyn, making his own way to Winterfell, when the ravens arrived about King Robert’s death and Eddard Stark’s imprisonment, and the North prepared to go to war.


	4. Chapter 4

**31.**

As it turned out, entering the North had been far easier than leaving would ever be.

The raven that brought the news of Ned Stark’s imprisonment to the lords of the North was followed shortly after by another, carrying Robb Stark’s demands. Winterfell called the banners, and the armies would march – and suddenly the North wasn’t a good place for any Lannister to be.

They said Jon’s father had fought Ned Stark in the streets of King’s Landing, in angry whispers and drunken murmurs. They said Tyrion had tricked Lady Stark somehow, in a deliberate plot to spark war in the Seven Kingdoms. They said that Queen Cersei had been the one behind the King’s death, plotting against both Robert and Lord Stark to put her son on the Throne – and that  Jon could almost believe, for all the good it did him.

Eddard Stark was in a cell somewhere under the Red Keep, and Jon Snow was far away from home. Castle Cerwyn was a large fortress, thick grey walls large enough to contain the smallfolk’ homes and even some of the fields, and beyond were the endless grasslands and cold forests of the North. There wouldn’t be any ships to King’s Landing, not now, and it was a long way to the Neck and the unfamiliar lands of the borders, and _Tully_ lands at that. Filled with swamps and rocks, the home of bandits and deserters, the Neck was not a place Jon had ever expected to visit in his life. Perhaps it would be better to risk the sea, a long journey on some trader from Essos who didn’t care about the Seven Kingdoms and their wars.

It took Jon hours to decide, musing over his possibilities again and again. He found himself a quiet corner in a well-lit tavern, buying rounds for what seemed like half of Lord Medger’s garrison, trying to find out if there was more to Robert death he hadn’t heard about. It turned out there wasn’t, but the rumors about Tyrion and Catelyn Stark were too insistent to ignore. They didn’t make sense; last Jon heard, Tyrion had been visiting the Wall.

By the end of the night, Jon’s mind was no more clear, if slightly inebriated. The air outside was cold, far too much for summer, even in the north, and Jon wondered idly if there wasn’t some truth in the Starks’ word. Shivering, he wrapped his coat tighter around his body. A ship to Essos was starting to sound more inviting by the moment, Jon decided; at least the weather in Pentos was better.

He almost made it back to his inn when the guardsmen found him.

**32.**

There was five of them, bulky, dark-haired men dressed in heavy leather with Lord Cerwyn’s coat-of-arms embroidered neatly on their woolen jerkins. They surrounded Jon without much effort, almost casually. One minutes they weren’t there, then they were. One minute the street in front of him was clear, then in wasn’t.

“That’s him!” one of the men said, and his hand went to his sword handle, resting there. He wore a thick beard covering the lower part of his face and, in the dark, there was no way for Jon to tell if they’d met before.

“That’s the boy from Dirk’s tavern,” he continued, and Jon’s eyebrows shot up – the guardsman was barely eighteen to Jon’s own seven-and-ten, and it was clear he had no idea of why he should be wary of Jon, besides perhaps his Southron-looking blonde hair.

One of the older guardsmen solved that problem for him, taking a step back to look Jon critically from head to toe. “Are you a thief, boy?”

And that was almost laughable, honestly, for a grandson of Tywin Lannister to be accused of thievery. Jon looked straight at the man doing his best impression of Jaime, cocksure and innocent to the bone.  
“A thief?” Jon asked. He didn’t even fake the surprise.

“You were seen sniffing around, asking for Lord Medger’s whereabouts,” the man said, perfectly stone-faced. “You kept asking when he would leave the town, you were seen bribing His Lordship’s men –”

“I bought some good men ale,” Jon cut in, incredulous. _Northerners_. Every bit as stiff as Tyrion had ever said, apparently. “Is that forbidden?”

“It depends,” the man said. “What do you need with these good men?” He looked almost thirty, with a hard jaw and hard eyes. Jon wondered how long he’d been a soldier, if he’d fought the Greyjoy besides Jon’s family. He wondered what the man would do if he knew who Jon was. He wondered if he would march on King’s Landing with the rest of the Northern host, when Robb Stark –

When Robb Stark would march below the Neck.

And Jon needed a way out of the North.

**33.**

Lord Madger Cerwyn was fifty-three years old and looked all of his age, heavy and gray-haired. He had a thin, dark scar that ran from his forehead down to his chin, and Jon found he couldn’t take his eyes off it as the man stared at him with an appraising glance.

“They tell me you’re a knight.”

“I am, my lord,” Jon Snow said. “When I heard about Lord Robb calling the banners, I thought about going to Winterfell as well.”

“Why?” The lord asked. “You don’t look like you’re from the North, boy.”

“My mother was,” Jon told him. “She was from White Harbor and my father from the Westernlands, and he’s the reason why she died.”

Jon stared right into Lord Cerwyn’s pale green eyes. “I want to kill Lannisters.”

The lie came to him more easily than it should have.

**34.**

The northmen did a splendid job of acting as if they actually believed him.

Jon was put under the command of Ser Galan, a greying knight who had been Lord Madger’s master-at-arms for the past twenty years, and worked tirelessly in the yard until the man decreed that if the pretty boy was no knight, then he damn well ought to be – _but this don’t mean we won’t be watching you, ser, just in case_. He was given free reign of the castle, provided he didn’t mind every single person in it following his every move, and a guaranteed way south of the Neck.

After that – well.

For some reason, no one around Jon seemed to even consider he would desert. He was looked closely inside the castle and not at all outside of it, and Jon wondered if his was just an oddity, or if northmen were all so unconcerned with the possibility of desertion. After all, the North was endless and the settlement sparse – but it didn’t matter. He would find a way regardless.

A fortnight later, they marched.

**35.**

When Jon had been five years old, Lord Eddard Stark had come to White Harbor to discuss something important with Lord Manderly, and remained in the city almost five weeks. He’d brought his wife with him, a beautiful vision in red hair and blue velvet, and his son – Lord Robb, whom Jon remembered as a chubby three year old, who’d pointed at the admiring crowd and laughed as he passed by.

Back then, before Jon could even dare to imagine the raw splendor of the Rock or the refined beauty of King’s Landing, he’d found himself wondering what kind of castle Lord Stark must live in, somewhere wonderful and far away. The Manderlys had a great feast on the day Lord Stark came to visit, the fires burning all night long as the musicians played until dawn, and Jon remembered going to sleep thinking that one day he’d be one of these grand people, with their bright clothing and tall horses.

More than a decade later, Jon found himself walking through the grounds of Winterfell. As a knight, he’d been allowed inside the walls, with the unspoken agreement he keep to the training grounds with his the rest of the men while the high-ranking lords and their heirs were locked in Lord Stark’s solar, discussing some strategy or the other. Jon’s feet had brought him to the godswood instead, and to the massive bone-white tree that gave him shivers at the mere sight. He’d walked away quickly, thinking about the unreal situation he’d found himself in, and how to best work it to his advantage. It would be weeks before Robb Stark’s host would march past the Neck, even longer until they would go to battle against House Lannister. A moon’s turn at least, Jon decided; he should find a way to slip away before then –

He was shaken out of his thoughts by a high-pitched yip, an animal’s heavy steps coming towards him. It almost looked like a dog, until it came close enough for Jon to see its muzzle – and the long teeth bared in an aggressive growl.

“Summer!” Jon heard someone call from behind him – a child, it sounded like. “Summer, sit!”

Jon turned to the oddest sight he’d even seen – a red-haired boy, cradled in the arms of a man as tall as Gregor Clegane, with a smaller child trailing behind the pair, looked after closely by a tall, thin woman who did not look as any other woman Jon had ever seen.

“I’m sorry,” the boy said, and it took Jon a moment to realize he was talking to him. “He is not usually like this. It must be all the new people making him nervous.”

Jon eyed the animal warily. It was grey-haired, and beautiful in the way only a wild animal could be. “Is he a wolf?” he asked.

“Summer is a _direwolf_!” The smaller boy cut in proudly, then frowned. “Only he’s Bran’s direwolf. Robb made me leave Shaggy in the kennels this morning.”

It hit Jon then who the boys must be – Lord Stark’s youngest sons, Robb Stark’s brothers. “Right,” he said, not quite knowing what it was expected of him. He did not think he’d stumbled on some parts of the castle ground that was forbidden to strangers, but it was better not to be singled out. “I should go. My lord,” he added with a half-nod in the older boy’s direction.

He made to leave, when the woman spoke.

“You’re making the beast nervous,” she said, looking at the wolf, then back at him. Her accent did not sound like any other he’d ever heard. “Who are you?” she asked.

“My name is Jon Snow,” he told her, still looking at the Stark children. She was obviously a caretaker, more so than the tall man, who had not yet said a world. “I’m with Lord Cerwyn’s men.”

The woman smiled, and it wasn’t a kind smile. She smiled like a predator. “Jon Snow,” she said. “You out looking for a place to pray?”

“I’m not much for praying.”

“I can see that.” She stepped in closer, voice dripping lower. “I’ve seen some evil men, and you don’t look like one. But them Stark men aren’t as nice as they look, either. Remember that.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Jon told her, then turned to walk away, feeling the woman’s gaze prickling on his neck.

**Author's Note:**

> If you have suggestions about where the plot should go and/or constructive criticism, they are both very welcome.  
> Also, I'm [on tumblr](http://www.qvcksilver.tumblr.com) a lot lately. It's a thing.


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